D&D 5E (2014) Kender as an appropriate race

[Mercule]

Looking at the title again made me think "Kender as an inappropriate race".

There isn't enough brain bleach to purge the image of a race of tiny elfish pervs walking around in unbuttoned trench coats -- and nothing else.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I said you may think the book is rationalizing, and not I. It wasn't entirely clear from your post, so I phrased it that way deliberately.

The book suggests excuses to use for stealing. At least one of them is "This certainly looks like yours doesn't it?

That's not an excuse that one gives if they only intended to borrow something and give it back. That's an excuse that a race of kleptomaniacs who try not to get caught say. It's telling that Tass never once returns something in the book without someone discovering the stolen item and accusing him first.

I apologize for that. That wasn't directed at you specifically, just general frustration with people prepared to accept all kinds of unbelievable insanity, yet draw the line at Kender. There's nothing wrong with disliking Kender, as I said before, but to wholly discount what other people might enjoy playing smacks of hypocrisy and a failure of imagination. Like I said, personally I find Tieflings are stupid, yet I wouldn't consider banning a player from choosing to play one.

I can understand people having a distaste for tieflings, half demons aren't the tone everyone is going for in their game. But the key with every other race is that they have certain inclinations but can be role played in a completely human way and very few people are going to say you are doing it wrong. Elves like forests but if you play one who lived in the city his whole life, everyone will just say "oh, so you are a city elf. Awesome." Even if someone role plays the heck out of their love for trees, they might be a bit annoying but they likely won't ruin a campaign. They are unbelievable but in an amusing way.

Kender are unbelievable in an entirely different way. They are the only race whose description literally encourages Kender players to say "Oooh, a dragon. I've never been eaten by a dragon before. I wonder how that would feel." And then actually pry open the dragon's mouth and get inside.

Tass actually said those words in one of the books and was about to head toward the dragon when one of his friends pulled him back. (I think, it might have been the time that he rationalized that he still wanted to have more adventures with his friends first and would come back LATER in order to feel how it felt to be eaten by a dragon)

Literally every campaign I've been in that has allowed Kender as a race has ended up with the entire party either dead or imprisoned because of the actions of the Kender. It's caused bad feelings out of character, a large debate on whether the Kender was "just role playing their character" and eventually the collapse of the entire campaign.

That hasn't happened with any other race.

 

[MG.0]

Literally every campaign I've been in that has allowed Kender as a race has ended up with the entire party either dead or imprisoned because of the actions of the Kender. It's caused bad feelings out of character, a large debate on whether the Kender was "just role playing their character" and eventually the collapse of the entire campaign.

That hasn't happened with any other race.

I've seen other people's campaigns implode over half-orcs, paladins, rogues, assassins, and more. I've seen Kender played just fine in a number of campaigns. If Kender collapse a campaign, the reason is bad players and bad DM'ing, not because of something inherently unplayable about Kender.

You can think they are unbelievable, just like I think a great many things in D&D are unbelieveable, but they are playable.

 

[MG.0]

The book suggests excuses to use for stealing. At least one of them is "This certainly looks like yours doesn't it?

That's not an excuse that one gives if they only intended to borrow something and give it back. That's an excuse that a race of kleptomaniacs who try not to get caught say. It's telling that Tass never once returns something in the book without someone discovering the stolen item and accusing him first.

Borrowing.

When Kender meet, they dump out everything they own to share. Not really the actions of your common variety thief or kleptomaniac.

No one can stop you from playing a Kender as a a dirty lying thief, but then that's your choice, and problem.

 

[Desh-Rae-Halra]

I fundamentally disagree. I think it's obvious from even casual inspection that--for instance--a wild magic sorcerer or an elemental monk are both a lot more complicated to play than a champion fighter. And I don't consider this a failure of design intent at all; some classes are simply more complex than others. That is 1) how it's always been, and 2) how I believe it should be. It allows for freedom of choice for people who prefer one style over the other, but it also--by definition--makes some options better suited to more experienced players.

As for the rest of it, everything I might say boils down to, "I strongly disagree based on both my preferences and my experience."

Oddly enough, 13th Age is very open about this premise during character creation. They rate their classes in terms of "ease of play"

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I've seen other people's campaigns implode over half-orcs, paladins, rogues, assassins, and more. I've seen Kender played just fine in a number of campaigns. If Kender collapse a campaign, the reason is bad players and bad DM'ing, not because of something inherently unplayable about Kender.

You can think they are unbelievable, just like I think a great many things in D&D are unbelieveable, but they are playable.

I still don't think they are playable if you play them the way described in the book. All of the times I saw them ruin campaigns had nothing to do with bad DMing. The DM ran the game just fine. But the time our Kender decided to steal the entire silverware collection from the Duke who invited us to dinner...you know WHILE we were eating the dinner had nothing to do with bad DMing. The Duke rightfully got rather annoyed that his expensive silverware was being stolen and tried to get the Kender to put it back. The Kender responded, as recommended by the book, that the silverware in this pack certainly LOOKED like the silverware that used to be on the table a second ago, but that cutlery had been in his bag before he got there.

The DM, rightfully, then had us all arrested for obviously being thieves who tried to take advantage of his hospitality to rob him. Which derailed the campaign fairly heavily as we spent the next couple of sessions trying to escape from prison with various players getting very angry at the player of the Kender for doing something so stupid. With the player of the Kender continually defending himself as just playing a Kender the way the book told him to.

The player certainly could have chose not to steal that silverware. Which would have removed the problem. However, literally the ONLY defining characteristic of Kender is that they are Kleptopmanics with no fear. Refusing to steal the silverware because he was afraid of what might happen would mean he wasn't fearless. Failing to take them simply because he decided not to take them doesn't make him much of a kleptomaniac.

The book literally says to steal almost everything you see all the time without fear of consequences. It says you literally have no fear of death. That means that each and every common sense thing humans do in their daily lives to avoid death Kenders just don't do. They are also super curious to try every new thing they can think of. Which means they all should be dead before they are even adults due to being run over by carts, jumping off cliffs, eating toxic things, and just seeing how it feels to be stabbed in the head by swords. Their "god" is the personification of their desire to put themselves purposefully in harms way with no thought to how it will affect them. How is that a believable race in any way?

I understand that some classes can cause problems with campaigns. However, it is possible to play an "assassin with a heart of gold" or a moderate paladin. However, even given that, I agree that classes are a bit more of a problem. Classes imply a behavior and a personality to go with the class. And behavior can be a problem. The behavior of a paladin could cause problems in a campaign.

Races don't imply any personality or behavior that would cause any problems with a campaign, though. If someone picks elf you aren't going to think, even for a second: "Here we go. He decided to be an elf. Looks like we're in for a campaign of stealing from all the other party members and running head first into danger." At worst, you might worry about the elf's vanity or racism getting slightly in the way. Most races aren't defined by their personality traits. They are defined by their physical traits with minor personality traits. Elves have pointy ears, the ability to see in the dark and are very dexterous. They are known to be slightly inclined to appreciate nature, magic, and have been known to be haughty. But all of those personality traits don't apply to every elf.

Kender is the only race that is defined WAY more by their personality traits than by their physical ones. Worse yet, they are defined by problematic personality traits.

My point all along is that when the book says "you are a curious kleptomaniac without fear", playing that gets you killed or causes problems with the campaign. I agree that it is possible for someone to decide that their kleptomania is mild and they avoid stealing things whenever it would cause problems for the party, they avoid stealing valuable things or things other people would get angry at them for. You can downplay their curiosity to avoid them running into dangerous situations to make sure the other party members don't get mad at you for it and your character stays alive. You can try to rationalize a fear response from your character by claiming that he "just doesn't feel like dying yet"(which was the excuse given by Tass repeatedly).

But all of those behaviors are an attempt to make sense of what is written in the book by downplaying what is written there to the point that Kender AREN'T an absurd race that should have killed themselves off ages ago.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Borrowing.

When Kender meet, they dump out everything they own to share. Not really the actions of your common variety thief or kleptomaniac.

No one can stop you from playing a Kender as a a dirty lying thief, but then that's your choice, and problem.

The problem is that Kender are written so inconsistently. They don't make sense because everything written about them is so contradictory. They have no fear. But Tasslehoff in the books continuously rationalizes behavior that would only come from fear by saying "He is just concerned about his friends", "He doesn't FEEL like dying just yet", "He'd miss his friends too much, so he wants to stay here for now" or "Something about the way Raistlin looked at him made him want to avoid taking Raistlin's stuff".

It's Kender tradition to "dump everything out and share" when they meet each other because they have no concept of property and want to share interesting things they've "collected"(after all, the things they have don't belong to themselves, either). Yet they never think to give anything back to the actual people they found them on. Borrowing implies a desire to give things back when they are done with them. Having no sense of property means they never believed those items BELONGED to someone in the first place. Whether that dagger is in their bag or someone else's bag...who cares? Both places are just as good as any for that dagger to stay. But being in the Kender's possession makes the item a lot easier to examine and have fun with.

The entire point of the race is that they get really confused when people ask them to put things back. Why would they put them back? They have them now and they are interesting items. I mean, maybe if they had something else to occupy their attention for a while, they could leave the item they just took here since you only need so many items to look at.

The books say that in Kender villages sometimes all of a Kender's furniture or food will just go missing one day as other Kender enter their house and steal it all. But sometimes they'll leave new stuff there as they get bored with it while picking up their other stuff. Which is fine because if a Kender finds himself without a chair or something, he'll just wander into the nearest house and take one of theirs. There's never an intention to give anything back. They needed a chair, there was one around. So, might as well take it and use it. When it goes missing...who cares, it didn't belong to them anyways. I believe one of the novels said that an item that stayed in a Kender household for over 2 weeks was considered an heirloom.

But "borrowing" is never something I've heard used in terms of Kender(other than used as a justification to steal things..."Oh...this? I was just borrowing it for a while"). They don't give things back, they just drop the things they've collected randomly and steal new things to replace them.

 

[Umbran]

Borrowing.

Is when you are given permission to take a thing, and you actually intend to give it back. *ACTUALLY* intend. If you claim it fell into your pocket and you didn't know about it, or come up with some other lie about its disposition, you never asked, and never intended to give it back. So, not borrowing.

"Borrowing" and "handling" are euphemisms, rationalizations, and excuses for behavior that isn't generally acceptable. "See, I'm cute! My transparent lies are *adorable*! So, you can't punish me for doing things we all know are wrong!" Intentionally or not, the race is written to enable the, "But this is what my character would do," excuse as a cover for disruptive behavior.

When Kender meet, they dump out everything they own to share. Not really the actions of your common variety thief or kleptomaniac.

Nobody said they were "garden variety". But, it isn't like the only way to be a lying thief is to be a garden variety one. So, that's no defense.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Dr Phil did a show with a teen who everyone thought had kleptomania and adhd. So very kender like and he said that true klyptomaniacs are always very sorry and appolgoze to the point of almost tears because they didn't want to take but had to...the kid was making excuses so he had other issues and not Kyoto he knew it was wrong and Dr Phil said as long as he was making excuses h e was just a bad the if

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The entire silverware collection? That doesn't sound like a Kender. The Kender would maybe absentmindedly pocket one or two pieces as they are getting up to leave but not the entire silverware collection and not in the middle of dinner. I think part of the problem is that people think the Kender take everything that isn't nailed down which certainly isn't how I've read them.

ok, how about this one (Not my own story but one shared years ago when I first had my own bad experience) a locked room in a dungeon (literal dungeon/old ruins) needed a gem inserted to open it, the PCs looked everywhere for it, and after an entire night wasted the GM told the players at around midnight as they were cleaning up the kender had it the whole time... he had picked it up 4 rooms earlier. The player defended himself with the classic "Hey my character didn't even remember it..." so the next month (they were playing monthly) they got together and said to have the kender empty his pockets at the begning of game... and they also found a missing +1 ring of protection, and another PC's locket both had gone missing game earlier... so the player who had his locket 'borrowed' went to take a swing at the kender... the Player of the kender called a time out he thought that there wasn't going to be any PVP in the game...

that was my ex roommate's first encounter with a kender... when not only the 2e campaign ended, but that player was kicked fromt he group, and the DM was so mad he quite the group....